Sat, Dec 6 - Sat, Dec 6  2014

A Possibility of an Abstraction is an EMPAC-commissioned production by Germaine Kruip, taking place December 6 at 7PM, that transforms the theatrical space into a field of cinematic experience. It is a play of perception, where shadow, reflection, architecture, and stage become the characters in a filmic experience created in the moment itself. Recalling pre-cinematic traditions of shadow play, and what Ken Jacobs termed paracinema (denoting experimental film practice from the 1960s in which films lacked material or mechanical elements), Kruip creates an atmospheric film-like effect without actually using film, accomplished by manipulating light across the proscenium stage that serves as a stand-in for the screen. Shifting between the cinematic, the theatrical, and the sculptural, A Possibility of an Abstraction creates a meditative space at the edges of our perception with optical illusions and the passage of time.

Manipulating daylight

A Possibility of an Abstraction marks the artist’s renewed engagement with theatrical technology and dramaturgy. Following winning the Prix de Rome in 2000, Kruip turned away from scenography to concentrate on visual arts, producing works that brought the theatrical elements of light, temporality, and the stage into a new architectural scale at galleries and museums. Often manipulating daylight with moving geometric sculptures and simple framing devices, her artworks transform the architecture they inhabit, turning each location into a sensual but abstract stage.

Curator: Victoria Brooks
Composer: Hahn Rowe
Lighting: Laura Mroczkowski
Dramaturgy: Bart Van den Eynde
Technical Assistance: Johan van der Woel

Architectural interventions

Germaine Kruip’s artworks often take the form of “architectural interventions.” Manipulating daylight with geometric, kinetic sculptures, these interventions transform each site into a stage, with the audience as actors in a play of substantive absence. Kruip’s work has recently been exhibited at Parra & Romero, Madrid, Spain; List Visual Arts Center at MIT, Boston; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Art Basel 41, Basel, Switzerland; the Approach, London; Museum De Paviljoens, Almere, Netherlands; the Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain; Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf; the David Roberts Foundation, London: Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; the Drawing Centre, New York, and in the MARZ Gallery, Lisbon, among others.